City parks: super and sorry

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, July 5, 1995

1995-07-05 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Alamo Square's necklace of jewel-like Victorian homes, draped around a landmark park, is a classic San Francisco panoramic shot - adored by producers of movies like "Mrs. Doubtfire," commercials and hit television shows.

But producers don't go in much for close-ups - the stuff seen by regulars like Josefa Perez, a mother of five who lives nearby.

"The playground is terrible - in very bad shape and condition," says Perez. "I used to use it, but now I have to take my kids out of the neighborhood. I've found hypodermic needles there in the sand."

The condition of Alamo Square is revealed in "Report Card on San Francisco's Parks," a new study that documents inequities between parks in The City's rich and poor neighborhoods and shockingly unsafe conditions at some of its most used resources.

The report card, a copy of which was given to The Examiner, was compiled by Parent Advocates for Youth, more than a dozen parent-researchers from Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, the San Francisco-based advocacy group.

The researchers, who live in The City and use the parks with their own families, visited sites numerous times over a six-month period. They interviewed users and graded parkson programs offered for children, recreation facilities available, playground conditions, public safety, restrooms, maintenance and the amount of graffiti.

About Alamo Square at Steiner and Grove streets, the report card said: "Playground equipment should be safety upgraded, sand too shallow. Glass & pet feces in play areas. Used heavily by day care, private schools and an occasional movie producer." The city landmark rated a

D.

Among conditions the researchers documented in 45 of the city's 150 public parks:

*Feces on the floor of the Hunters Point Recreation Center at 195 Kiska Road, a facility described as "gross," dirty and unsafe for kids, and ranked among The City's worst parks. The facility was cleaned and painted after the report card was written, according to Mary Beth Wallace of the report card's parental task force.

*Garbage-strewn grounds, dog feces, extensive holes in fences and a blanket of unsightly graffiti at Crocker Amazon Park at 799 Moscow St., resulting in the same failing grade given the Hunters Point Recreation Center.

*Extensive graffiti and gang and drug activity, making some parks virtually unusable for children - particularly in The City's poorest neighborhoods.

Researchers commonly found many substandard conditions in parks of low-income neighborhoods like Hunters Point, Bayview, Visitacion Valley and the Tenderloin.

San Francisco's affluent neighborhoods had the best parks, the study indicated. The Marina's George Moscone Recreation Center, at Chestnut and Buchanan streets, got an A and the most glowing remarks - safe, clean facilities and a setting that is "a real jewel."

The other A went to Julius Kahn Playground, at Pacific Avenue and Spruce Street in Pacific Heights, for its

"safe, protected" environment and sparklingly clean recreation center. The Richmond and Sunset districts also graded well overall - all B's save for a C at McCoppin Square at 24th Avenue and Taraval.

The F's went to parks in Hunters Point, Western Addition, Tenderloin and Crocker Amazon.

Declining revenues&lt;

Margaret Brodkin, executive director of Coleman Advocates, said the study illustrated the effect of declining revenues on San Francisco's parks, "a resource as critical to public safety as any other department in The City."

Officials of The City's Recreation and Park Department, while disputing the contention that parks in well-to-do areas got more attention than did those in the poor areas of town, said they agreed that cutbacks in staffing and maintainance had, in some areas, endangered a frequently used and important city investment.

"We should be held accountable for providing the best environment and best programs we can," said Joel Robinson, supervisor of recreation programs. "I know people try and make the argument that more affluent areas get more, but when it comes to recreation programs, that's not the case."

"We generally deal with social conditions in Bayview, the Western Addition, and the conditions are not of our making," he said. "The solution partially is with relevant and good recreation programs, but we're just one cog in the wheel. The other cog is doing substantial work for a group of young men and women so that (illegal) activity is not a part of their lives."

Maintenance cut back&lt;

Ray deLeon, in charge of maintenance for Recreation and Park, said:

"There's no question that our ability to perform maintenance - what we were able to provide five years ago - has been dramatically reduced because of budget reductions."

Current staff "does a hell of a job" with more work and less funding, he said, but "we have fewer gardeners, crafts people and maintenance people to make those repairs. If it weren't for them, our parks would be in even worse condition."

Concerned citizens groups like Coleman Advocates - as well as neighborhood groups - play a critical role by pointing out needs, deLeon said. In some areas, like Garfield Square and in the Mission District, he said, they have lobbied hard for improvements and changes, and gotten them.

"If it helps us to do a better job," he said, "I'm all for it."

The parents' study found wide variations in the quality and safety of city parks - even among those that were only few blocks apart.

In the Ingleside District, for example, Balboa Park at San Jose and Ocean avenues was praised for a colorful entrance of flowers, for its swimming pool and for a newly resurfaced tennis court used by players and roller skaters alike; the park was downgraded only for its locked restrooms, rating a B-.

"In spite of great efforts by Recreation and Park and neighborhood activists, parents still have serious concerns about safety," the report card said.

"Consistent police presence is needed to keep it safe. Seeing a police car drive by is not enough."

Rich and poor neighborhoods&lt;

Parent researchers said they were most disturbed, though, by the large differences in appearance and safety between rich and poor neighborhoods.

"It all comes down to money - the haves and have-nots," said Susan Brown, a mother of two who lives in the Fillmore District and helped to research the study.

As a perfect example of a great park, Brown said, the Marina's Moscone Park has "two playgrounds for the kids, softball fields, tennis courts, library, an extensive tot area."

There are "sewing classes and a music room with a piano and another art room that's beautiful," she said.

"They've got a quiet room for kids - you name it, and they have it there."

"It's really ironic that a neighborhood like (that), where families have the wherewithal to afford private recreation for their kids," also tends to have the loveliest parks, said Susanne Renard, a mother of two who assisted in the research.

Parents in more troubled neighborhoods, Renard said, often don't have the money - or the options - to organize the fund raising or political lobbying that have served to bolster facilities and equipment in some local parks.

But some neighborhoods are trying.

Koshland Park in Hayes Valley is a potentially beautiful area that has suffered because of neighboring crime, drugs and prostitution, parent researchers found.

"Obvious drug activity on site," the report card said.

"Young kids should not be there without adult supervision, if at all."

"The facilities are hardly used at all," Brown said.

Saturday party at Koshland&lt;

But Hayes Valley residents are seeking to improve the situation. Barbara Wenger of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Coalition said tenants and homeowners - well aware of city funding and staffing problems - had gotten money from the Koshland family for whom the park is named and invited 200-300 neighborhood kids and parents, along with mayoral candidates, to Koshland Park this Saturday.

A barbecue, party, family picnic and neighborhood celebration will kick off aggressive efforts to deter drug dealing, prostitution and other illegal activities in the area, Wenger said.

"It's time for us to take the park back," Wenger told a neighborhood group this week. "It's part of our community."

Such efforts to get good parks, and maintain them - keeping graffiti and crime at bay - are critical to the city's families, said Brodkin of Coleman.

"If you have a park where people deal drugs, it becomes a problem for the community rather than a resource for kids," she said. "The cost of maintenance is really small . . . and it's an investment in the future that we've got to make." &lt;

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